


To the Moon and Back

by Birdie_0607



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Reset Theory (Mystic Messenger), Time Loop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-23 23:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdie_0607/pseuds/Birdie_0607
Summary: Seven wakes up alone in his room, and all he has left of her are memories.(707 route & After Ending spoilers)





	1. Chapter 1

“It’s time to wake up from your sweet dream.”

It was the voice that made his heart ache, his head throb and his hands sweat; the voice that should be gentle and warm like a summer's day instead of this taunting sneer — the voice he never thought he would hear again, and definitely not like this, never like this…

Why was he hearing it?

“Open your eyes and face the truth.”

Seven sat up abruptly, a groan escaping his lips. It was so quiet save for the soft whirring of the computers, the blood pumping in his ears, and the shuddering breaths he was taking. He felt himself shiver — his shirt was soaked through with sweat, and there was no blanket in sight. A cold and very lonely bed.

 _His_ bed. His bed back at the bunker.

“Did you really think any of it was real? Pathetic.”

Pathetic.

Wait, what? A... _dream_?

Seven scrambled off the bed and sprinted towards his desk. His hands searched for his glasses hastily, knocking over empty soda cans in the process, until he could finally push the frames up his nose and see, as clearly as night and day, that there was no trace of any hacker on his servers and that it was the first of June of the year of our Lord two thousand seventeen.

Which was a lie. A lie to confuse him. Today had to be the eleventh. Never in his life would Seven forget the eleventh of June — it was the day he made a promise to his dear beloved, the day he made the first step to begin a new life, the day he would definitely save his most precious, his one and only brother. There was no way he would remember it wrong, and there must be all kinds of logs on his phone, too—

His phone! Seven rushed back to his bed and ripped off the sheets in a single motion. The phone tumbled to the floor, and he caught it in midair — great reflexes, even when he felt like death. His phone. He had to call her — he had no idea what was going on, who hacked into his computers and what they wanted, and where on Earth was _she_ — what had happened? Why was he back at his bunker, alone? He was trying so hard to remember that it felt like his head was splitting in half — but no matter how much he tried, the last thing he could recall was the wind hitting his face as he drove and the way she brushed his hair out of his eyes, so very tenderly; brow creased in worry, then eyes shining in adoration. He could see it clearer than any reality in front of him; the image of her face when she lay under him, loving him, trusting him, was burned into his brain like a brand, marking him as hers forever. It was more real than any fake date on his phone, any suspicious lack of any logs from the past eleven days in the chatroom, any disappearance of her data from all of his devices. It was _real_ — the most real thing he'd ever been allowed to have in his life. Whoever was playing this cruel joke on him was going to fucking _die_.

_Did you really think you could ever have this?_

Everything had been completely wiped. Nothing left — not her number or texts or call logs, not the files dedicated to her interests, likes and dislikes, not his own photos of her. Of course, it wouldn't be hard to find her number again, to trace all of her accounts again, to download terrabytes of data connected to her all over again, and take many, many new photos of her — but why wasn't she even here? What had happened? Was it the agency? If he's suffering like this — just what could they be doing to her..?

Seven had never worked this fast before — a fraction of a second, and he was already dialing her number, his heart in his throat. Please pick up, please please please — he would give any ransom, offer his own head on a silver platter, if only the monster torturing them would pick the hell up and tell him what they wanted. He had been right all along, he never, ever should have become close to her, and now he was paying the highest price imaginable — her, so innocent, all because of him! He would do anything — please be alright—

"H-hello..?" His heart stopped beating for a moment, and he couldn't breathe — her voice, her voice! It almost seemed like millions of light years since he'd last heard it, though it couldn't have been that long at all, could it? He pressed his phone as close to his ear as he could, thanking God for letting her pick up, for letting him hear her... She sounded hoarse, and... drowsy? Tired?

"MC!" he whispered — no matter how much he wanted to scream, to weep, he had to be quiet. He couldn't endanger her more, not after everything he'd already done. "Are you okay? Where are you?"

"...Huh?" There was shuffling on the other side, and he held his breath — cold, wet fingers of fear squeezed his heart like never before, almost wiping his mind clean of any thoughts. "Who... is this?"

 _Did you really,_ really _think this was real?_

"I—" His throat was suddenly as dry as his eyes were wet. "It's. It's Saeyoung."

"...Saeyoung?" He could hear the frown in her voice. It didn't sound at all like his name — it was his name when she spoke it with a smile, with a breathless laugh; as a gasp, looking into his eyes like she possessed his soul. Not like this — like she'd never heard it before. Like it didn't mean anything. "Sorry, I— are you sure you've got the right number? I mean, um, you do know my name... Uh... How'd you know my name?"

He wanted to claw his eyes out just so he wouldn't feel the moisture sliding down his cheeks, dripping onto the floor. He covered his mouth with this hand, trying to choke down any sound — but he didn't dare to take the phone away from his ear, not when she was there.

"Uh, look," she spoke at last. "I'm sure this is important, but, um, can it wait until the morning? It's three a.m., you know."

Of course, he could wait as many thousands of years as she'd ask him to, but he had a feeling she wouldn't ask. He took a deep, deep breath, and croaked out a "Yeah, sorry."

"It's fine," she mumbled. So kind, even now, even to someone like him. "And— I'm okay, by the way. If you were still wondering. Um, whoever you are."

She hung up. He hastily wiped at his eyes and looked at his phone one more time — still the first of June, her number still not even saved in his contacts list.

_Did you really think this was real? Face the cruel reality, brother._

If these were what happy dreams were like, he'd prefer nightmares and death.


	2. Chapter 2

Seven blinked at the screen, and the mint eye blinked right back at him, mockingly.

He wasn’t really expecting anything when he was going into this. It was business as usual — push any thought that made him the least bit hopeful away and concentrate on the task at hand. Employ violent force against himself if necessary. Work until the blue lights of the screens left burns in the back of his skull, until he couldn’t move a single muscle that wasn’t directly responsible for typing, until he forgot to blink, unseeing, unfeeling — one with the machines. This time it took twice as much effort to shut the thoughts out than on the worst of days; he could hear his heart beating over any music blaring in his headphones, over the white noise in his mind. He could watch in real time as his brain split in two — one part insisted that believing even for a second that the dream had any truth to it was suicide while the other reminded him that even if he was crazy, if he didn’t at least _try_ to use the clues it had given him, he would never forgive himself.

And of course, there was no way a _dream_ would be prophetic. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. But it seemed — so real, and suspicions and fears were clawing at his chest, and V wasn’t fucking picking up no matter how much he called.

And so he tried. He had a very good memory, after all, even when it came to remembering dreams. Usually it seemed like an awful curse, but this time—

The mint eye on his screen, watching him lazily, all-seeing.

If this part of the dream turned out to be very much real, who's to say his brother wasn't in there right now, hating the world and suffering?

Seven didn't want to think of that. He didn't want to think, to see, to remember, to imagine — he just had to move, and do it now; his brain went on autopilot when he started lugging all the necessary equipment into the car. He was hit by a feeling of déjà vu again, for the thousandth time today, as whatever he did he could remember doing in the awful dream. He’d had to do this several times then — first was the journey to Rika’s apartment, leaving his car by the road and sprinting the whole way to the complex, and the computers he carried not falling and breaking into a million pieces was a miracle with how rattled he was, completely unlike himself. And he’d been going so fast, but still he was almost late, had he faltered, had he been held back for a single second, she might’ve—

Seven stopped in his tracks, cursing under his breath, and leaned his forehead against the cool metal of his car. That time wasn’t even _real_ , because it was a dream, and he had to stop thinking about it. Why was he so pathologically incapable of getting his shit together? He had real problems now, and real fuckups to fix.

He didn't know what he would do if he didn't find Saeran in that shithole — praise the Lord, maybe? And spend the rest of his days trembling, wondering if his brother really had a good life. Wondering if he could really trust V. It would be downright pathetic to stop trusting him because of some stupid feel-good dream that he didn't even deserve to have, right? But the suspicions were blazing in his heart, and he didn't think he could sleep until he saw with his own eyes what Rika had been hiding in that apartment.

He started the car. He didn't even have to use GPS to know the way to Mint Eye — he remembered every second of his dream still, playing out in front of him like a movie the moment he let his thoughts wander the slightest bit. The sun was already bright in the sky when he entered the mountains, a beautiful breezy day, just as lovely as the eleventh of June.

Which hasn’t happened yet. Because that was a dream, and not real.

Seven gripped the steering wheel tighter, clenching his teeth. What was it that Jumin told him? “Kill all your emotions?” It really did sound like something he would say, and it was solid advice, even if it was given by a fake dream-Jumin. When he came home — _if_ he came home — he would ask real Jumin for some real advice. He really needed to stop being this crazy if he wanted to help anyone.

Seven wiped his sweaty hands on his pants, letting out a breath. Kill all emotions. His eyes were trained on the road, his phone lying in his peripheral vision — just in case. Just in case.

It wouldn't be long now.

At the very least, it wasn't long until every muscle in his body spasmed, inexplicable dread filling his stomach. Black bled into the edges of his vision, but he could still see his phone screen come to life, flashing lines and lines of code as he hastily tried to pull over — tried, because none of his limbs seemed to be operating as they should, as if somebody had hacked into his own brain, releasing a virus into his nervous system. His arms jerked, painfully and unnaturally, turning the steering wheel, launching the car to the edge of the mountain road. But despite his darkening vision, Seven could see — bright and clear, much too bright and clear for how far his phone was — the words across the screen, familiar and once very warm.

_MC has entered the chatroom._

He wasn't in control of anything any longer — not his body, not his slipping mind — as his car went over, but he couldn't help but wonder, _Wasn't that supposed to be a dream? Is this a dream? What is real?_

He was never allowed the pain of the fall, nor the release of death. Waking up in his bed, freezing and alone, he checked the date on his phone, the chatroom, the logs, not sure what he was searching for this time.

Perhaps he did like the happy dreams better than the nightmare of waking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so srry this is so late and short ;;;; I kind of hate this chapter but next time the action starts and there's actually other characters and MC lol I'm excited  
> Thanks sooooo much for the kudos guys!!! I'm pretty excited for a lot of things in this story and hope you continue to enjoy^^ Thank you for reading!!!!


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